Early Wars

A nation that restricts its leadership to a narrow aristocracy deprives itself of most of its brainpower. Britain crippled itself in this fashion at the time of the American Revolution, with devastating consequences. Read more >>

The first great success of the American patriots came on October 17, 1777, when a British army under John Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga on the Hudson River in upstate New York. Burgoyne had gotten into an impossible position because of abominable leadership. Read more >>

An invasion into enemy territory can elicit all manner of responses from the defending population, many of them unpredictable....In general, however, a commander can anticipate firm opposition from both the enemy military and the civilian population, and must examine carefully how to meet various kinds of opposition. Read more >>

On May 20, 1781, Cornwallis joined his army with a small British expeditionary force at Petersburg, Virginia, about eighty miles by road west of Hampton Roads. Cornwallis had moved up from Wilmington, North Carolina, giving up for the present a two-year effort to subdue the Carolinas. Read more >>

When William, duke of Normandy, decided to conquer England in 1066, he employed the knight on horseback and the bow and arrow, and therefore possessed weapons superior to those of the English. Read more >>

The longbow was not an English invention. It was developed by native Celts in Wales, and first aroused attention in 1182, during one of the numerous English attempts to subdue the land, when Welsh arrows penetrated an oak door four inches thick. Read more >>

The armies of eighteenth century Europe were largely mercenary, employed by kings who used military means and diplomacy to advance their own narrow dynastic interests, and who evoked few sentiments of nationalism or patriotism among their subjects. Read more >>

The army Philip [of Macedon] had created was radically different from other armies. Whereas the Greeks relied for protection on large shields carried on their left arms, which kept their right arms free to wield an eight or nine-foot-long spear, the Macedonians sacrificed an amount of shield protection in order to wield a longer, heavier thirteen to fourteen-foot spear, called the sarissa. Read more >>

Another remarkable case of the effective use of guerrilla tactics is Scotland, which preserved its independence from England by following for 250 years, with occasional lapses, the “testament” of Robert the Bruce (1274-1329).Read more >>